


There Is Some Hope

by PaulaMcG



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: 1978, Aftermath of Full Moon, Baccara, Canon Divergence, Christmas Lights, Cold Weather, Dancing, First War with Voldemort, Friendship, Hand Jobs, Healing, Healing Sex, Kissing, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Nightclub, London, London Underground, Love, M/M, Oral Sex, Pre-Sirius Black in Azkaban, R/S Small Gifts 2019, Rowling's First Five Books Compliant, Singing, The Stranglers, Wimpy Bar, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:22:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21863677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG
Summary: Two days after December full moon, Remus has more than one reason to try his best to drag Sirius along to a lesbian nightclub.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: RS Small Gifts 2019





	There Is Some Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aryastark_valarmorghulis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryastark_valarmorghulis/gifts).



> Thank you once again, my amazing beta liseuse. Happy continuation of small gift season, Arya!

“Taste it, Moony!” Sirius urges, slumping down on this fancy leather couch of his, on my right, where I ended up leaving too much space when making sure he’d choose that side.

“You could dance with Amelia.” I shift closer to him while pressing on with the topic he tries to drop.

I’ve missed my Pads so much, needed him so much. There’s been a sob inside of me, and just at the moment when it could finally be received with compassion, it’s turned into a resilient quest for fun, turning into a teasing smile. 

Sirius, even more irresistibly handsome than I’ve pictured him in my mind in his absence, leans against me with a small contented sigh, clearly just happy to close the gap between us, as there’s nobody watching. After five days of separation – and on this particular week – we both yearn for more closeness than this. I’d like to forget… what I must remember to do my best to hide from him, from Amelia, and from everyone, of course.

Going out with the two of them, the love of my life and my ex-almost-girlfriend, seems – at least to my hopeful and reckless post-transformation mind – like an imaginative, genius solution. I also hope that new exciting music in a Muggle nightclub will help Sirius relax after the hard days of training, which – to his frustration and to my secret relief – still haven’t led to any promise of the almost qualified Aurors being called to fight in the war. 

Wishing I could think of something that he would find truly tempting, I add, “She won’t mind if it looks like you’re a couple. And that’s the place where she’s got me a membership card and nobody cares how young I look.”

He only snorts into his glass before taking another swig. Perhaps there is some hope, since he keeps guzzling the rowan berry wine. He needs to muster up courage to face… not Death Eaters, it seems, but situations where he might be considered my partner, or just queer. That’s… not hurtful, only sad, and not ridiculous, just a bit amusing, endearing, I decide.

Sirius must have emptied one bottle before I arrived in his and James’s fireplace, after he’d sent the owl with an urgent order to come because he wants to share the rest of what his Moony made for him over a year ago. Having finally got home, James had, of course, hurried to Lily, who had returned from her Curse-Breaking trip to the Peloponnese. Sirius probably couldn’t wait to see how I was doing and to hold me close, but resorted to an excuse like this: the need for a drinking buddy.

I swirl the pale red liquid in this stemmed glass, one of the fancy Muggle objects Sirius has started collecting. The diodgriafel has matured well and doesn’t taste totally unpleasant. Making the wine here as a part of the preparations for his birthday party last year was one in the series of my attempts to give something without spending the money I didn’t have. I remember being already bored and fearing that everyone else was bored with my scavenged and painstakingly prepared offerings. But although Sirius supplied all the ingredients except the berries, and the wine was not even fermented and ready to be bottled, a bucketful of booze looked like a generous and fun gift. And on this icy and drizzly evening it could be lovely to just nurse a bottle – or a posh stem glass – by the fireside, then cuddle and shag.

“Here I can dance with you,” my Pads says right on cue. “Naked if you want.”

Now I myself feel tempted – to break my promise to Amelia. Using Sirius’s bird to inform her of the change in plans, I perhaps should have apologised and cancelled. But I’ve been looking forward to dancing again in Louise’s ever since Amelia invited me there on that memorable evening last month, when she wanted to come out to me, and me to come out in front of the punks and queens in her new favourite club. At the moment she must be thrilled to expect me to finally manage to drag Sirius along.

“You know I always want you – as close to me and as naked as you agree.” I slip a hand under the hem of his shirt, hoping that I can keep my own jumper on just by referring to my usual wish that he touch but not look at my chest, so that I can imagine that the oldest scars are not there – that his caresses make them disappear.

He jumps, hopefully just for one reason. “Your hand’s cold. Why?” He frowns, perhaps feeling guilty, having forgotten that from the subhuman-standard neighbourhood where I had to move six months ago I need to walk a long way to a decent wizarding shop with a Floo connection. “You haven’t lost the star-patterned mittens, have you?”

“It’s not that wintry yet.” I’ve withdrawn my hand and buried it inside his thick dark mane to warm up. “After a dance in the nude we can quickly put on only a few clothes and have a little adventure in the Muggle punk scene. I know you’ll like it.”

“Why didn’t you Apparate to the building?” Sirius changes the topic. “I know you’re not like Wormy, too lazy to climb the stairs.” Whereas I’m stingy with Floo powder, he must think while leaving it unsaid. “Not in the shape to Apparate?”

Before becoming aware of it, I’ve glanced at my left forearm. And Sirius, having already got suspicious, watches me closely, setting his empty glass on the coffee table and grabbing his wand. A quick voiceless charm makes the sleeve of my jumper roll up and reveal the bandage.

“And you’ve just told me you’re fine!” Now he truly jumps – onto his knees on the couch, leaning closer over me, trembling with the urge to shake me, I know, or to tear the bandage off so as to see the wound.

Upon arrival, how else could I have replied to such a hopeful if concerned greeting as, “You all right? And how was the furry time? Too bad Prongs and I were stuck on the Auror training camp.”

Now Sirius can’t wait for any response. “Let me see it!” But he’s still too agitated, and before focusing on a charm to unwrap the bandage, he needs to lay the blame on… “Wormy! I should have known he alone can’t keep the wolf calm.”

I press my mouth tight, watching the last layer of the bandage unfasten from the wide bite wound, two days old and slightly inflamed, then hasten to say, “It’s not his fault. I told him not to bother. Thought it was safer not to run free on Birks Fell with just the rat.”

“What the hell did you do? Rip your arm to shreds in your parents’ cellar and decide not to worry them by asking your mother to heal the wound.” Ranting, he’s touching the edges of torn skin cautiously with his fingertips, then smelling the wound, shaking his head.

“No.” I draw a deep breath, closing my eyes. “I decided not to worry them by telling them that my…” My Animagi friends, those two who’ve revealed themselves to them, can’t be there for me every month. “By going back there for that night. You see, my new landlady knows what I am, and she’s got a cellar and the goblin magic to seal me in.”

“But not even a mouse to keep you company! If you continue to be such an idiot, you must study Healing.”

“You know that this sub-human idiot is allowed to study only how to dispose of others like…” No, I dislike my own bitterness, and when it’s made Sirius’s rant turn into a frown, I feel guilty. “Sorry.”

“Don’t say that! Now if you dare say you’re grateful – for your lousy grant from the bigots, or for any cellar…”

Now we’re both so angry that we’ve got tears in our eyes.

“Anywhere else?” Suppressing a shout or perhaps a sob, Sirius almost swallows the words, too.

“What?” Anywhere else than… a cellar?

“Wounds. Bruises.” He’s moved his hand onto my palm.

“Oh. No. Just this one. I think the wolf…”

My Pads falls against my chest, into my lap, squeezing my hand but keeping the wounded arm aside, out of harm’s way. The pressure of his weight makes it hard to breathe, and the strength which I’ve restored more slowly than usual feels lacking.

It’s a relief when he slides down to settle on his knees between my legs, and reaches his right hand up under the jumper, a soft and warm hand to stroke the flat abdomen and the scarred… No, I can see in my mind an image of my regained body as a true treasure, the skin flawless and lovable.

The wolf was not violent, really, just frustrated, just feeling unloved. And it’s good I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Sirius loves me. He used to hate sex, and he’s learnt, allowed me to teach him how to enjoy touching and being touched.

But now he’s doing this only for me. He brushes my left wrist with his lips, then lets go that hand, and focuses on untying the knot in the shoelace I use for a belt.

“Now I’m glad about yesterday’s boring first-aid lessons. I can make that arm better,” he mutters, opening my fly, “but I know this is the most urgent first aid for someone like you. I mean someone with a condition like yours: sex addiction.”

He glances up at me with glistening eyes and a trembly smirk. My cock’s already hardened when he wraps his fingers around it and starts stroking it with firm, rhythmic movements. I place my right hand on his temple, and caress his brow with my thumb – until he bends his head, and by suddenly taking my cock deep into his mouth, makes me gasp and grab his hair. He’s proceeding in such an uncharacteristic way – without his initial struggle against disgust, without his later playful teasing – that I’m blissfully and painfully on the verge of erupting, held back only by a sense of alarm, urgency, perhaps even anger in his manner.

For the first time ever he allows me to – doesn’t even give me a chance not to – come into his mouth. And I do. Oh, I do!

I’m afraid he still hates it, and I feel like both weeping and telling him that I love him, but I mustn’t do either, there’s such a risk that he’ll misunderstand. We’ve already got used to coming together, but this time he’s not even aroused. My cock’s shrinking under his hand, and I can hear him swallow, but he keeps his head down.

Reaching for his temple again, then for his cheekbone and his stubbled chin, I come up with, “You’re beautiful. Everything you do for me is beautiful.”

As I bend forward, we lean our foreheads together – our habitual first touch after moonset torment. There’s just the difference that this time his lids are closed, not mine.

Moving his head, he opens his eyes in order to check the position of my injured arm, and entwines his fingers with mine. Now he slides his other hand under the cuff so as to caress my right, healthy arm, before reaching to stroke my neck and collarbones but – as if fearing misunderstandings, in turn – not to touch the very first and worst bite scar on my shoulder. There’s still unnerving haste in his caresses. His fingers get caught in the chain of the shark tooth pendant, a cruelly humorous gift from him, and he lifts it from under the jumper, hardly having the mind to figure out if I’m wearing it tonight because of him or the monster, while no, it’s just the only way I could dress up for a club. Finally, with a closed mouth only, he places a kiss like a seal on my lips.

He picks his wand from the carpet without saying a word, but despite his pride in mastering a lot of spells voicelessly, he resorts to a spoken incantation when pointing at the wound. “Diagognosko!”

I feel only tickling, besides the dull throbbing I’ve got used to.

But Sirius frowns and shakes his head. “I wish I could take you to St Mungo’s or to anyone who’s better…” His voice breaks, and he starts again in a mocking, self-deprecating tone, “I wish!” And again, hopefully, “Your mother?”

“No. I have trust in you. You can do it.” Since he’s found out about the awful thing I’ve done, at least he must be the only one.

“I know the spell to close the wound, but because there’s inflammation and I haven’t got the ointment that’s recommended… It’ll hurt.”

So what? Something new about that? “It’s all right. I want you to do it,” I say, managing a grin, “and I want it now.”

He’s finally looking up, and after biting his lip, he mirrors my grin and nods.

Having placed the wand tip close to the wound, he pronounces carefully, in a soft voice, “Regenerasco!”

His wand stays steady, then starts moving along the wound slowly, in his full control. Our eyes are following it together, but I close mine as the wound starts to… Moderate hurting like that doesn’t exist for me. In my mind I focus on the wand and on my Pads: beech, supple, thirteen inches, to match how tall and handsome and brilliant he is.

It’s over. I use my healed left hand, my favourite for art and caresses, to grab his chin and turn his face towards me. Pressing my lips first on his temple, then, parted, on his mouth, I give him a chance for some more proper snogging.

His tongue enters only briefly before he withdraws it, saying against my lips, “Now just don’t say you’re grateful. Not even ta. And I’ll manage not to stay angry with anyone.”

“All right. Let’s not say anything about all that. Tonight I want to have fun, and you to have fun.” I’ve placed my hands on his shoulders and started rubbing the tension off, feasting my eyes on his dear face. “If you want I can come back with you for a late-night naked waltz, but it’s easier to forget… that there was anything wrong with my arm, if we go to the club with Amelia, who mustn’t know.” 

“Aren’t you going to give up?” He separates himself from me and slumps back where he was sitting beside me.

“There’s this.” I launch into one explanation. “I’ve thought that now for the first time she’s suggested a date so soon after the full moon for the purpose of getting proof for some suspicions.”

He’s raised his brows at the word date. While he doesn’t comment on that, I wonder if he’s still jealous, although he knows that there’s been nothing remotely romantic between me and her ever since our fifth spring, when he became a dog for me, or even the autumn before, when we started taking care of each other.

“No,” he says calmly. “If she wanted that, she could have suggested two nights earlier. Besides, I’ll wager she knows. She must have known for years.”

“No.” She mustn’t know.

“Remember, Lily’s said that Bones said years ago she just knew you were not. We’ve all concluded it must mean she’d figured it all out and decided to protect you.”

“But…” I grab my glass and hold it in my both hands, caressing the smooth stem. “And don’t call her Bones. It’s really high time the two of you become closer friends. And anyway, I want to keep it easier for her… I’m not going to tell her, and I don’t want one more friend to have any more reason to feel dishonest when asked whether they know if I am a bloody subhuman.” Sorry? That would more certainly make him angry again.

But he’s uncharacteristically patient with me, or perhaps characteristically stubborn, having decided to indulge me. He just shakes his head, reaching for the bottle on the table. 

He fills his glass and tops up mine, too, and takes a gulp. “So that’s why you didn’t want to cancel.”

“Right. But I also want to be with you, so please come along!” Normally reluctant to ask for anything, let alone beg, I try my best to copy the puppy face James uses on Lily.

I don’t think I should make this more complicated by explaining how I hope the night out will benefit him. That it’ll do good to him to see people who are comfortable to appear queer in public.

To my relief he barks a laugh. “You must work harder to persuade me. Is there a band playing?”

“No, but I can ask the disc jockey to play our favourite records. Did it even the first time, asked for Siouxsie and the Banshees for Amelia.”

“Punk, really? Not just disco? They’d play the Tom Robinson Band, or the Stranglers?”

Punk is fortunately what Amelia, too, likes after the revelation she got in the Victoria Park concert and after falling in love with Siouxsie, if not fully with the other Susan, her co-apprentice. Perhaps Sirius has got hooked on punk music because of its rebellion against both the society and the conventions of music as it was taught to him by his horrendous, abusive mother, who forced him to learn the piano and forbade him to sing in his faulty voice. Punk, first Tom Robinson, introduced to him by Andromeda, has made him brave crowds he normally avoids due to his aversion to strangers – or anyone except me and Prongs – touching him. Three months ago… Yes, exactly three months ago, until only a couple of hours before the rise of September full moon, he was pogoing in Battersea Park concert crowd, and – to his subsequent anger with himself – had to be kicked by Prongs before he realised I was soon getting too weak to Apparate to our hide-out in Yorkshire and that we had to leave immediately.

Now I’ll be happy to ask the deejay to play the Stranglers for him. “Course. Or the Doors.”

Am I teasing him, too, trying to make him jealous? If not due to his mother’s influence, which he’d deny, perhaps due to Lily, our guide to popular Muggle music, having started with something like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Sirius prefers the kind of punk where you can make sense of some intelligent lyrics. And in the case of the Stranglers, where the keyboards weave swirling lines to mix with the typical punk sound. Lily pointed out that the keyboards were an influence from an earlier band, the Doors, and I looked for the records to listen to at shops, and saw posters, too, and perhaps copied Amelia by finding an idol – a dead one, though.

Sirius has turned his head towards his record player, but contents himself with elbowing me. “If you’re going to dance in public like that late Jim, or like that other idol of yours, that Freddie queen, perhaps I should be there.”

Yes, safely dancing with a woman, even if she’s a lesbian or whatever she is. But I don’t risk anything by saying this.

Jumping up and offering my hand, I say instead, “Let us go then, you and I.” 

One of the lines of poetry Amelia and I used to quote in jest at the time when, in vain, attempting a romance in our third and fourth year.

After grunting and emptying his glass, Sirius allows me to pull him to his feet. “Any dressing up needed?”

I’d love the make-up Amelia applied on my eyes, but better not mention it.

“No.” Now I remember to close my trousers, pulling the string tight around my too small waist. “The ripped punk look of my older second-hand trousers is not required. We’re good as we are. Let’s just grab our jackets.”

“All right. I’m ready.” He pats his pockets, and adds, so that I don’t need to ask about it, “I’ve got tickets for the tube, and Muggle money for my membership card and for the big number of drinks I’ll need.”

“We can walk. It’s not far. Poland Street in Soho, just a station or two from here,” I reply at the door.

He always offers me tube rides, as he knows I’m still enchanted by the Muggle magic in their speed and noise, and he insists now, too. “In that case we’re taking the tube to Oxford Circus. To see the Christmas lights. I once escaped to see them with…”

I wonder if in his mind he names his little brother, now an enemy. He stops halfway down the stairs, and wraps the trailing end of the old knitted scarf carefully around my neck.

“Anyway, since I moved to my flat,” he starts babbling as soon as we’ve exited and left the shadow of the entrance to the Land Register Head Office, housed in the Muggle side of the same grand Victorian building, “I’ve seen no Christmas lights on Oxford Street. They say it’s because of the financial climate, the recession, what have you. But now the lights are back, I hear, or rather there’s a novel kind of lighting.” 

I step to his right and let my gaze follow, in the deep December night gloom, the patterns woven by the bare branches of the trees in the park. I’ve become fond of Lincoln’s Inn Fields in any season, and I love striding on this pavement at his side, even though he now keeps his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.

Perhaps I should feel guilty of his being cold, as he may have chosen not to take his winter coat so as not to draw attention to my owning only this too thin corduroy jacket. The weather’s changed during the days I stayed inside recovering. Of course, I didn’t escape noticing it in that drafty room with no heating. I’m warmer now when on the move, beside my Pads, with my healed arm rubbing at times against him. Tonight the two of us belong to a world of warmth and light and colour and…

“My traditional Christmas food!” Sirius exclaims on Kingsway where we’re not far from Holborn station.

He’s about to grab my hand, then pushes me at the shoulders instead, making me head across the street towards the familiar Wimpy Bar, his regular burger restaurant. “Amelia can wait. I can’t wait to have an egg bender, or a bender egg, or a bender in a bun with cheese.”

In our shared burst of laughter right at the doorway, there’s no space for protests. He, too, remembers how the first time I came here, Peter tried to embarrass me by suggesting such sausage meals to me and hoping I knew the slang meaning of bender. Perhaps he doesn’t need to remember how he alone frowned and ordered for me something else. Myself, I’m now not ashamed even of the fact that he must be the one to pay. Without any words needed, I go and choose a corner table while he walks up to the counter.

When we tuck into our big portions of meat and egg and chips and tomato, both of us quite as ravenously, it’s obvious we won’t mention that this is the hearty post-transformation meal I’ve craved for since yesterday afternoon, if not earlier. Sirius must guess it is. Sitting opposite to me, he throws only quick casual glances at me. He seems determined not to ask what I told Peter – if I promised that I’d be in my mother’s care, or if Peter really should have known not to neglect checking on me yesterday. I, too, try not to think about anything, not even about how much I love my Pads.

At this moment I want to focus on something he seems not to love about me. Gratefulness. For the scents and the colours and the greasy lustre of the food in front of me, and for its warm softness in my mouth. 

“Let’s get going,” he says abruptly, when we’ve finished eating in silence and at the same time, after he’s sneaked some of his food onto my plate and I’ve pretended – to myself, too – not to notice, “before I change my mind.”

As he hurries a bit ahead of me towards the underground station, I wonder if he’s angry. He lights up, takes a couple of pulls and hands the fag to me. I only suck the taste of smoke and of him into my mouth before following him into the ticket hall and to the bank of four escalators.

He’s just nervous. He’s taken care of not getting more reasons for anger. He stops to quickly hand me a ticket, and I resist the temptation to let my fingers linger on his.

It occurs to me to choose an escalator next to his, and I walk a few steps down to reach the same level with him. When he notices me waving to him, he gives me a genuine smile of a happy surprise. But as I keep glancing at him again and again from this distance, as if looking at a stranger, I realise that he stands out as a gorgeous, mysterious figure, a film star or a rebellious hero from an epic tale. And if I stand out to him or anyone, it must be as a pauper in a gritty, depressing story.

To my own distress, I continue this game on the platform and on the tube, and even in the Oxford Circus station.

At last, out on Regent Street, I walk over to him and extend a hand. “Oh, Mr Padfeet! So good to see you.”

He flicks aside the hair hanging over one eye, and pumps my hand, grinning. “Mr Moon! How are you? On your way to clubbing, too?”

“Yes, indeed I am. What a delightful coincidence.” I flail my other arm to the direction of Poland Street. “However, I’m first making a little detour along these magnificently decorated streets. Would you fancy joining me?”

“Definitely.” Sirius is genuinely excited now. “They’re supposed to have laser lights shining up and down all Oxford Street.”

Now we look away from each other, all around and up, at the rich display of bright yellow lights and of warmer, orange-shade stars running across Regent Street above us and in rows and rows to both directions as far as we can see. Once again the sight of something simply pretty fills me with cheer and hope.

It strikes me that until this moment I haven’t truly believed that Christmas is coming. In a few days my Pads will decorate a tree with his twinkly stars, and with my moon, brightest of all, on the top, and we’ll have the Marauders’ solstice party. And finally at home in Bagendon, I’ll be setting a festive table with my proud parents, who’ll be recounting anecdotes from their own years at Merlin College.

I’ve turned and followed Sirius a few steps up Oxford Street. And now he stops so suddenly that I bump against him.

“This is it?” He says with incredulity and disappointment in his voice.

There are two thin, coloured but faint beams running along the street, above our heads. I step right under the blue one, and now it looks a bit more impressive. The other one is red, and without quite knowing why, I feel relieved it’s not bright green like…

“It is fascinating.” And I add in a whisper, “Like wand magic made visible and immobile, permanent. I’d like to paint beams like that.”

But I feel a new chill, and it’s not only due to standing still in the frigid, damp wind. In my view, these lights refer not to celebration but to danger, war, even though there isn’t – or luckily I haven’t seen – any beam with the colour of killing.

“Well...” I cough, as my voice has turned hoarse. “We’ve seen something extraordinary. Now, I don’t know about your padfeet, but my feet are getting...” Frozen, numb, or let’s say, “Eager to dance.”

I catch Sirius’s eyes and give him a resilient smile, jerking my head towards our destination.

When I lead our way through a small maze of narrower streets, he keeps close at my side.

And he starts singing in a low voice and a hectic rhythm, “I wanna burn up when I’m having good times/ Don’t wanna burn up with other people’s bad times.”

“Look, it’s the door with Gryffindor colours.” Digging the membership card out of my pocket, I walk up to the bell and ring.

Just like when Amelia brought me here, a peephole opens. “Are you members?”

In the small foyer, my Pads stands tall and – with his windswept hair ever more – handsome, and hides his nervousness, when Louise herself, the ancient lady in grey and diamonds, looks him over and murmurs, “Ah, my dear, you must become a member, too.”

He’s just pulled out a bank note, not a somehow familiar tenner, but a beautiful purple one with even a detailed depiction of a dragon, and I keep staring at it on Louise’s desk while she’s counting out a lot of change. I ignore a sound of heavy footfalls, and am startled by arms around my waist.

Turning, I free myself, and end up holding Amelia’s both hands. She allows me to push her a bit further away, so that I can have a good look at her outfit.

“You look… glorious!” I feel so happy to see her square face beaming.

She’s proudly exposed her features by brushing her hair up from her forehead and behind her ears, secured it with the familiar kirby grips, and drawn dramatic dark lines around her eyes. And painted her mouth scarlet to fit perfectly our House colours in her striped silk tie, which I couldn’t help envying when I tried to help with the knot last time. But what’s so new and splendid is the perfect three-piece Muggle suit, something I’ve got to admire up close only when Peter came from his grandfather’s funeral.

“The men’s suit! I’ve seen…”

“Seen this one on Peter? He sold it to me.”

Sirius snorts. “That’s our businessman Marauder!”

“Oh, Sirius, I’m sorry.” Amelia extends her hand to him. “Here we keep admiring his suit when I should hurry to welcome you! A new member to our little exclusive club!”

I suppose that any more enthusiasm and expressions of delight in Sirius’s arrival would just embarrass him more. He shakes her hand and even pats her shoulder like a bloke’s. I wonder if he’s upset as she doesn’t look like the woman he’s been promised as her dance partner.

She might think along the same lines, and when leading us into the bar room and across the red carpeting, she says, “You’ll see we are a motley crowd here, keep changing our styles, but mainly lesbian, very safe.”

As I spy our reflections in the large mirror on the back wall, above the black couch, I’m glad the lighting is so dim that she might not notice how drained I am still, despite tonight’s blessings. And I trust Ballerina John won’t flirt too much.

“Hello, Bruce!” He hurries to take our order when we’ve barely sat down, side by side, Sirius in the middle, and greets me from behind his red hair, which is hanging to cover half of his acne. “You’ve brought a new friend.”

“Hello, John!” I manage, but now I must respond to Sirius’s raised brows with a smirk and a shrug.

Amelia beats me in the introduction. “Another good old friend.”

“You can call me Pats,” my Pads says with a grin and a hairflick, which is mirrored by John, “and you can also bring us some good strong drinks.”

“Vodka?” John suggests, while his eyes are devouring the grace that is the love of my life.

“Three Screwdrivers,” Amelia decides.

“That’s orange juice and vodka,” I explain, when our waiter has walked away, swinging his hips, “and the way John moves is just because he used to go to a dance school.”

“Good for your health,” Amelia adds, “the oranges, I mean.”

“My health, you mean?” Shrugging off the jacket and unwinding the woollen scarf, I realise I’m feeling relaxed, unselfconscious, and ready to laugh, at myself, too. “But when he brings the Spam and gherkins, don’t think he’s trying to fatten me up. It’s just the law: no alcohol allowed without unappetising food.”

Sirius offers a fag to Amelia, then one to me, hesitates and lights his first, then gives us the light from his, and breaks the companionable silence with, “And this healthy bloke here is called Bruce?”

“That’s what he is?” I reply. Just a chap in his best health, and a real monster, or not? “You know, Bruce, like the mechanical shark that functioned – and malfunctioned – as the protagonist when they filmed Jaws.”

Sirius glances at Amelia, who now reaches to touch my shark tooth pendant. Of course, Amelia doesn’t need to learn that Jaws is my middle name, forced on me by the Registry.

“You must really love that film,” she says. “Didn’t know you like horror.”

“It’s rather a thriller. And just the very first film I saw, an experience I treasure.” I take the plastic tooth in my fist and kiss it.

John returns and places the glasses and the paper plates on the red table cloth, but at the same time Amelia cries, jumping to her feet, “Let’s go down to dance now. I know this song.”

“All right.” I stub out the fag I’ve hardly smoked. “We can come back for this healthy meal soon.”

Only Sirius grabs his cocktail and takes a deep draught.

“Oh lover baby/ why don’t you reach out/ why don’t you maybe/ reach out for love,” Amelia sings along while waiting by the spiral staircase.

I catch Sirius’s wide eyes over the rim of his glass and jerk my head towards her. Oh yes, you’re a bold Gryffindor.

Yes, he’s going and descending in front of me, with the black leather as his armour. Down on the small dance floor there are dykes swirling and flailing their arms, glancing at themselves in the surrounding mirrors, and Amelia joins them, laughing. Their movements make me realise that there’s what my father has explained to me as a Spanish influence in this song, which… suddenly, awfully turns familiar. You know that it would be untrue...

“It is your favourite!” Sirius now laughs, having leant against the banister to regain his cool.

“Oh no, an awful version!”  
.  
“Come on baby light my fire,” Sirius sings along with the female voices.

Amelia swirls close to me. “Baccara, two Spanish ladies.”

“Now I know what to give you at the solstice party.” He’s giddy now. “I want to see you and Peter dance to this.”

He’s drunk, of course, but at least he’s having fun, and he, like most people here, it seems, doesn’t take this too seriously. Perhaps I, too, only pretend I do.

“They’ve spoiled even the lyrics,” I shout in exasperation. “It’s supposed to be ‘Our love becomes a funeral pyre.’”

“Don’t be so negative.” Sirius elbows me. “And you can ask them to play the original next. Go ask for your Jim! Is it that smoked-glass booth?”

Shaking my head, I walk up to the deejay dyke, and dig out a pencil stub and a piece of paper, which I always carry in my pocket for spontaneous sketches. Having written down my wish, I slip the paper into the booth and turn to look back towards the staircase.

But my Pads is not there. He’s taken off his jacket and shifted to the middle of the floor to dance with Amelia.

And he holds out his hand and beckons me to join them just as a new rhythm starts vibrating through us.

“It’s burning up time/ Burning up time,” the three of us sing together along with the Stranglers.

My Pads is dancing with me in public and singing with abandon, “You either love or you despise/ There's just no time for compromise/ The days have gotta move real fast/ We know that nothing's gonna last.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in 1978, when December’s full moon fell a week before the solstice, on Thursday the 14th, and when Christmas lights returned (in a novel form, which is described in this article: https://alondoninheritance.com/tag/christmas-lights/) to Oxford Street after a few years’ break.
> 
> In all my fanfiction I follow only the canon of Rowling’s first five novels, and my Marauders were born in 1957 and 1958, Sirius in November 1957 and Remus in March 1958. This is not their first but third December after leaving Hogwarts. My Remus does not have a Muggle or Muggle-born parent. No Hope – despite the title!
> 
> The phrase “Let us go then, you and I” derives from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot. Louise and Ballerina John, and the description of Club Louise in 61, Poland Street in Soho are based on this article: http://history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.com/2007/09/club-louise-and-sombreros-london-197677.html.
> 
> Baby, Why Don't You Reach Out? / Light My Fire (Zentner - Soja) / (Morrison, Densmore, Manzarek, Krieger) (Full-length version), performed by Baccara, was released in West Germany in August 1978, and in UK only in 1979, but the edited, shorter version was included in The Hits of Baccara, released in late 1978. The original Light My Fire by the Doors was released in 1967. The Stranglers performed in Battersea Park on the 16th of September 1978 (until 6 pm, while the full moon rose just past 8 pm), and Burning Up Time was included in their 1977 album No More Heroes.


End file.
